INNOVATION COLLABORATIONS OF FIRMS: THE CASE OF HUNGARIAN MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES

Multinational companies (MNCs) are geographically widespread production networks that can coordinate operations and activities in more than one country. MNCs transfer innovations, expertise, knowledge and advanced technologies to their host countries through their subsidiaries. Therefore, multinational companies are seen as transfer intermediaries distributing international technologies and innovations. MNCs help to bridge the existing technology gap between developed and developing countries. Due to the multilocation nature of MNCs, the study aims to examine the various drivers that influence Hungarian MNCs’ R&D collaborations, making them choose to collaborate either with local partners or with partners in the countries of their headquarters. The paper reports on the preliminary findings of an on-going comparative research focused on understanding the key drivers of innovations and competitiveness in Hungary. For our empirical analysis, drawing on data from the Eurostat’s harmonized Community Innovation Survey 2010–2012, we used the probit regression model. Since many studies have shown that innovation processes in companies are based on the same principles or similar framework, it is possible to generalize the results of the analysed data and successfully put the recommendations into practice. Our analysis provided mixed results; it has demonstrated that marketing orientations, expenditures devoted to research and development, absorptive capacity, firm size as well as funding support provided to Hungarian MNCs influenced their choice of collaborating partners. Hungarian MNCs were highly probable to collaborate with both local and foreign partners in the enterprise group, while preferring to cooperate with local universities rather than foreign ones.